Oral History Interview with Phillips Russell, November 18, 1974.
Interview B-0011-3. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007):
Electronic Edition. Southern Writer Describes His Part in Worker Education
Programs During the 1930s and 1940sRussell,
Phillips, interviewee Interview conducted by Frederickson,
MaryFunding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the
electronic publication of this interview.Text encoded by Mike MillnerSound recordings digitized by Aaron SmithersSouthern Folklife CollectionFirst edition, 2007104 KbThe University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina2007.

MP3 file derived from WAV preservation master, which was derived from
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Oral History Interview with Phillips Russell,
November 18, 1974. Interview B-0011-3. Southern Oral History Program
Collection (#4007)Series B. Individual Biographies. Southern Oral History
Program Collection (B-0011-3)Mary Frederickson116 MbChapel Hill, N. C.Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill18 November 1974Oral History Interview with Phillips Russell,
November 18, 1974. Interview B-0011-3. Southern Oral History Program
Collection (#4007)Series B. Individual Biographies. Southern Oral History
Program Collection (B-0011-3)Phillips Russell25 p.Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at
Chapel HillChapel Hill, North Carolina18 November 1974Interview conducted on November 18, 1974, by Mary
Frederickson; recorded in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Transcribed by Joe Jaros. Forms part of: Southern Oral History Program Collection
(#4007): Series B. Individual Biographies, Manuscripts Department,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Original transcript on deposit at the Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill.

The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.

An audio file with the interview complements this electronic edition.

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Library of Congress Subject HeadingsDocumenting the American SouthTopicsEnglishFacultyNorth Carolina2007-00-00, Celine Noel and Wanda Gunther revised TEIHeader and created catalog record for the electronic
edition.2007-01-04, Mike Millner finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing.
Interview with Phillips Russell, November 18, 1974. Interview B-0011-3.
Conducted by Mary Frederickson

Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round
Wilson Library

Citation of this interview should be as follows: “Interview B-0011-3, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”

Charles Phillips Russell was born in North Carolina during the late 1800s. After
graduating from the University of North Carolina just after the turn of the
twentieth century, he spent time in New York and London, working as a writer
before returning to Chapel Hill to teach at the University in 1925. For the
majority of the interview, Russell focuses specifically on worker education
programs in North Carolina during the late 1930s and early 1940s. During these
years, Russell taught for one summer at the Southern Summer School for Workers
in 1939 and for two summers at the Black Mountain College Institute of the
Textile Workers of America in 1942 and 1943. Russell describes the role of
leaders at these schools, offering insight into the labor activism of Louise
McLaren, Leo Huberman, Larry Rogan, and Mildred Price. Comparing his experiences
at the two schools, Russell describes the role of faculty, the role of students,
curriculum, and recreation. According to Russell, the Southern Summer School
adopted a "top-down" approach in which teachers exercised a great deal of
authority and control within the school, whereas the Black College School was
more oriented around the students. Russell also addresses various schools of
thought within the labor movement, arguing that while some labor leaders
emphasized political action, he believed economic change was more important. As
for curriculum at the summer schools, while workers were encouraged to
participate in politics as a means of promoting their collective interests,
Russell argues that political activism was not overt, nor was it geared towards
espousing particular political ideologies.

Short Abstract

Southern writer and University of North Carolina professor Charles Phillips
Russell describes his participation as a teacher in worker education programs
during the 1930s and 1940s. Focusing specifically on the Southern Summer School
for Workers and the Black Mountain College Institute of the Textile Workers of
America, Russell compares the role of faculty, the role of students, and the
curriculum at each institution. In addition, he speculates on schools of thought
endorsing political action and economic action within the labor movement,
specifically as they related to worker education.

Yes, I came here at the turn of the century, in the year 1900 as a
student. I stayed here and graduated and I was always interested in
writing and I went into journalism and newspaper work for awhile and
eventually wound up in New York where I stayed for quite a few
years.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Weren't you at the London School of Economics for awhile?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, I never went to the London School of Economics, I went to London on
my own.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Oh, I see.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

I worked on an English newspaper. I was the only American on the London
Daily Express.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Was that during the '20s?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, it was. Well, let's see, I came back from there in the fall of '25,
so it must have been about 1921 that I went over to England on a visit
and stayed there nearly five years.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Were you covering all sorts of things for their paper or were you . . .

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well yes, at first, but later on when they found out that I was an
American and must have a lot of good American ideas, they made me a kind
of . . . well, an idea man for promoting the paper, boosting it and
booming it and advertising and publicizing it in various ways. The owner
of the paper was Lord Beaverbrook, who was a Canadian. He was very
interested in American ways and all and I think that it was his
influence that pushed me along. He wanted to see how it would work out
there.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

You were there the year that Frank Graham was at the London School of
Economics, weren't you?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Would you say that again?

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Were you there the year that President Graham, then Professor Graham,
went over to study?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Did you have a lot of contact with him that year?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes. I saw him several times. We had some long walks and talks. That was
one reason that I eventually wound up here in the faculty. He became
convinced that there was a place for me here in the faculty and he saw
to it that I was invited. So, I came here. This was, of course, several
years after my return from England and that was just about forty years
ago. I have been here ever since.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Do you remember any of the other Americans who were there that year? Lois
MacDonald, who I spoke with, was there, do you remember her at all?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, I just remember her briefly and vaguely. I didn't make any special
endeavor to meet or cultivate other Americans there because I wanted to
see how it would be if I just subjected myself to all the phases of
English life that were possible under the circumstances. Americans in
foreign cities, I've found, tend to congregate together and really be
influenced to avoid meeting any of the natives on that account. Well, my
attitude was the opposite.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I understand. Now, when Frank Graham called and asked you about the trade
union school at Black Mountain, that is something entirely different
from the Southern Summer School, right?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No. I don't remember the title, but I don't remember whether they were
the same thing or not, we, in talking it over, just called it the trade
union school or the union school, you see. It was backed by the Textile
Workers Union. I don't think that this was the same t thing as the
Southern Summer School. This was more strictly labor. The Textile
Workers Union sent the organizers there from time to time to see how we
were doing.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Well, what was your first contact with the Southern Summer School?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

I don't remember. A lot of this, I've almost forgotten about it because
it has been so long and so many things have happened since. Well, Mrs.
McLaren . . . she was in the Southern Summer School, wasn't she?

MARY FREDERICKSON:

She was the director, right.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, I had one summer with her in Asheville. It was on the grounds of
the college there. But that was a different thing from the textile
workers school.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Do you remember much about Mrs. McLaren?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Oh yes, I remember her very well.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

What kind of a person was she, what was she like?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, she was a large, gentle woman, very nice always in her manners. I
would call her a typical southern matron. I always got along well with
her and as far as I know, we were always the best of friends. Her
husband was with her part of the time and she had two or three
assistants or associates . . . we didn't get along quite so well. I
mean, I didn't get along as well with her associates, but Mrs.
McLaren was all right.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Do you remember any of the associates specifically?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

I can't remember their names, it has been so long. One of them was a man
who became editor of the Monthly Review of New York.
It was kind of a liberal and labor magazine.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

The Monthly Review of New York?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, but I can't remember his name.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Could it have been Leo Huberman?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Huberman, yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I had him on my list to ask you.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Huberman, that's right.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

He taught economics there, didn't he?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, that's right.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

What was his background, or where was he from?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

I never knew very much about him. I only saw him in the lecture period
when he was at the desk and lecturing for the benefit of the students
and I just popped in to listen.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I see.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

But I never saw very much of him outside of class.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

You said that you didn't get along with him, what was the root of . . .

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, I didn't mean to put it quite that strongly. We just didn't have very
much in common. There was no particular antagonism that you could put
your finger on or any active dislike. We just found that we hadn't a
great deal in common and didn't try to do anything about it. That's
all.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Was the school set up so that outside of the formal classes you could
discuss things? I mean, was there a lot of discussion about trade unions
and economic problems?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Oh, yes. Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

So, everyone would know each other's feelings on that.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, that's right.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I am curious to know when you were there, what the feeling was about . .
. the school had been in operation for about ten or eleven years before.
What came down as far as who had founded it and why it had been founded,
what its history was? Do you remember anything?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, not much. As to the history of the thing, there wasn't very much
discussion. It was more about contemporary problems in the labor
movement and so on among the unions which took up most of the
discussions.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I see. Do you remember Mildred Price?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, she was one of them, Mrs. McLaren's associates.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Do you remember anything specifically about her? She taught English, I
think, didn't she?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, that is my recollection. No, I saw her, as I say, chiefly in
classrooms but not much outside of that.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Who did you see outside, in the evenings and so on? You were fairly
isolated on the campus, weren't you?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, I was.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Who did you tend to talk to? [laughter]

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, not much of anybody. I was older than anybody else there and I had
a different set of views in at least one respect. That is, at that time, I had just been traveling around the country
with Big Bill Hayworth, the labor agitator. I was going to write his
life and so, I traveled with him a good deal. I had a little New York
apartment where he used to come and stay overnight when he wanted to
hide, you see. So, we got along very well together and we had everything
all arranged when he was put under indictment by the U.S. government at
the beginning of the agitation about war and he was an anti-war man.
They indicted him along with some IWW leaders and the next thing I knew,
Bill was on a ship bound for Russia and I never saw him again.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

So, how did this help form your view of what was going on in labor? What
was your feeling after he left?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, of course I felt right much let down because I wanted to use this
not only as a biography but also as a history, there being nothing of
the kind available at the time. I was all the time supposing, as I think
he supposed, that after a visit over there in Russia, things over here
would quiet down and he would return and resume where he left off.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Did you communicate with him by letter while he was gone?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, I never did. There were too many possible consequences.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

What was the feeling among the people at the school . . . how was there
view different of what was going on than yours?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

There were two schools of thought then in the labor movement. One was
that what the AFL does today is going into political action, voting and
getting out the vote and all like that. Whereas my own view and that of
my better friends was that economic action was just as needed as
political. We had a fear that labor would grow stronger on its own field, that is, of economics, rather than just going to
the polls every couple of years and dropping a piece of paper in the
ballot box.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Well, as far as political activity was concerned, it was a very confusing
time in the late thirties. What did those associates of Mrs. McLaren
like Huberman, what did Huberman want to do?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, he was a political activist, as was Mildred Price. In fact, I would
say that all the assistants and associates of Mrs. McLaren were
political actionists. I didn't oppose that or argue against it, but I
didn't think that it was strong enough.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

You didn't think they were strong enough?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

I didn't think that political action was strong enough. I didn't think
that it would get the results in a way that strong economic action
would.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

When you say strong economic action, do you mean programs like the New
Deal programs that had been instituted?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, that's political. The New Deal was all political. Economic action
implies something different from voting, you see. Voting doesn't
necessarily come into it at all. That is, voting for the usual array of
candidates that were all picked at a distance and unknown to you
personally. What was called direct action at the time was . . . well, it
might imply a strike or it might imply taking some . . . well, for
instance, during that Lawrence strike at Lawrence, Massachusetts, which
was one of the few that Haywood controlled or bossed at the time. He got
the children sent away, you see, out of town where they could be better
taken care of, better fed and so on because a strike always means that
somebody's income suffers. So, that would be a manouver that wouldn't be
political, you see.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I understand. So, it would be directly related to the local area that you are talking about rather than a broad national
program?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, it could be localized or you could make a countywide movement of it
or a statewide, as far as that is concerned.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

But it would tend to be more directly related to the people involved?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well yes, that would be the chief point of it, to give the people some
feeling of relationship and control towards what was going on.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

In the article that you wrote on the Southern Summer School for the Carolina Magazine, you spoke of the practical
experience that the students had, of how important that was in the
program of the school. How did the students react to the classes that
Huberman and Mildred Price taught? How did they tend to react?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, they were very respectful towards anything that was supposed to
help them, but I thought that you could pretty well tell that they were
not always very excited about it. They took these things as routine,
more or less. They didn't talk about it very much after the classes were
over. It is just that this school I'm thinking of now was Mary McLaren's
school at Asheville College in Asheville. Now, we had another one that I
liked much better and got more from that was at Black Mountain this side
of Asheville. There, the union people from all over the South, as far
away as Texas, took control of their own affairs and ran them pretty
much as they liked.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Even in the school itself?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

At the Southern Summer School, at Mrs. McLaren's school, what was the relationship between that school and labor
organizers?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, it was very friendly. Labor organizers used to come by the Southern
Summer School, pay a visit or deliver a lecture, something like that to
show their interest and friendship. But the other, at Black Mountain,
was strictly a textile workers union, you see and they organized it and
ran it. A chap named Larry . . . I forget his last name, it will come to
me in a minute . . .

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Rogan?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, Rogan, that's right.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

He was running the textile school?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

He was running it for the union, yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I see.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

He was a very lively, energetic fellow and we had a very interesting
school of it. Well, there was quite a difference between the Southern
Summer School and this textile workers course that I am speaking of. For
instance, to give you a few illustrations of the difference, one of my
first assignments as a teacher was, I said, "Write me a little account
of your visit here, your leaving home and climbing into a railroad car
to bring you here. Don't put too much detail but give me an account of
the important happenings and the effect made upon you and so on." Well,
I could tell that they all liked that. I tried to think of subjects that
they would be naturally interested in, not anything too dry or formal or
too abstract. Well, all the members of this class turned in a paper
except one man who was a member of an Alabama union. He was a
middle-aged man, rather well dressed with . . . I would say that you
would judge him to be a middle-class business man if you saw him walking
by. Well, he didn't hand in a paper and he didn't the second day. So, I
called him aside and asked him what was the matter
because everybody was due to hand in a paper. Well he said, "Mr., I
might as well tell you, I can't read or write." What are you going to
do? You ask a man to write a paper and he says that he can't even read
or write. This Alabama delegation had some of the prettiest . . . well,
if they had moved some of these girls into the fellows' course in New
York, they would have been accepted right away. Lovely girls, nice
manners and everything. They were typical southerners and so on and
plenty smart, smart enough to keep up with what I gave them and so on.
We tried to divide the time up equally into studies on one hand and
recreation on the other. We had dances every evening and we had baseball
and track contests and so on. There was something going on all the time.
A lot of these people blossomed out like flowers, as it were. As soon as
they got over their fear that something bad was going to be done to
them, they just enjoyed it.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

How closely involved was the faculty of Black Mountain, were they running
the school or helping to run it? The regular faculty of the college?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, Larry Rogan was the head of it and he picked his own people, some
of them came there for only one day or two days or maybe three days,
something like that. Others, just one or two, stayed there regularly. We
had one meeting here with the textile workers after we had all returned
to Chapel Hill. There were quite a few of them from the Durham cotton
mills. Quite often, when I would go to Durham, somebody would call my
name from the streets and it would be one of these delegates that had
grown up since I had last seen them.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I could have imagined that they would have. I have a couple of other
people that I wanted to ask you about. Do you remember a William
Wolfe?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

I remember that name, but I can't quite place him.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I think that he taught dramatics.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Oh, yes. I believe that I do remember him. That's another thing that I
shouldhave mentioned. We had very strong classes in dramatics. They all
liked that, putting on a play and rehearsing for it and listening to it.
They went in clean overboard for that, yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Clean overboard? [laughter]

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes. [laughter]

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Did you think that less time should have been spent on that sort of
thing?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, no. Just the contrary. They had been starved for this kind of thing
all their lives. They had never had any taste of it. They were amazed to
find that they could do it.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

What about Grace Lumpkin, do you remember her?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, just in passing. I never got very well acquainted with her.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

You don't remember anything specific about her?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

What about Joel Layton?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, the same thing. I remember him, but not very well.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Did you ever meet Mary Barker? She was chairman of the board of the
school for a long time.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Barker? No, I never met her. I heard her name mentioned, but she didn't
visit there during my time.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

While you were there, you taught English classes?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, yes. I taught English composition and writing and speaking,
debating and so on along with working as much trade union business as
was possible under the circumstances.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Was there not very much emphasis on trade unions? Did you think there
wasn't enough?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, a great many of them didn't realize that there was anything to it
except joining the union and paying their dues afterwards?

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Was this on the part of the students or on the part of the staff?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

The students. We are talking now about two different things and I don't
want to get them confused. On the one hand, we are talking about Mrs.
McLaren's Southern Summer School and . . .

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Right. I was going back to Mrs. McLaren's school.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Now, that was at Asheville and that was one thing, but the school that
really had more life in it in my view, was the one at Black Mountain
which was controlled by the textile workers union.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

For how many years did the one at Black Mountain go on?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, I don't remember what its total life was. As I recall, I think that
I attended three different schools.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I see. This was later, after you had gone to Mrs. McLaren's school,
right?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

During the war?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, I forget where the war figured in. The war didn't bother us very
much. The only time that I have any war recollections was at the textile workers school where a bunch of ambulance
drivers came over in uniform to play us in baseball. They wore their
uniforms and that was the only war evidence that we saw.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Now, to go back to McLaren's school, when you were there, didn't you work
with some student assistants? Didn't they bring in some students from
the colleges?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, they . . . well, they were brought in, but they were chiefly social
visitors.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I see. I've been trying to figure out how much control Mrs. McLaren had
over the school. Did she seem to be in control?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

She was the boss. Everything of an objective nature had to pass through
her hands.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

She did keep tabs on everything that was going on?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

How did they raise their money?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Now that, I don't know. I never got interested in the financial aspect of
these things because that was outside of my province.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

You said that you thought the school at Black Mountain was much more
lively and effective in what they were doing. What would you say was the
biggest problem that Mrs. McLaren's school had? Why wasn't it as good,
as active?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, the affliction was the same that gets all schools like that, too
much direction from above, you see. In other words, the teachers wanted
to be in exclusive control and managed to work things around so that
they got complete control and everything was subject to their orders,
you see.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

So, in their classrooms, did they control discussion and control . . .

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, but of course, that was to be expected but I mean that everything
that went on in the school came down from above. It didn't come from
below as it did with the textile workers.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

You mean that the students weren't encouraged . . . I mean, one of the
whole tenets of workers education, as I understand it, was to start with
what the students had and move from there.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Did you feel that they failed in that?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

I wouldn't call it failure so much as an indifference to it. That is, it
didn't seem to be a factor that anybody worried about. The students
accepted it because that was the way that all the schools worked that
they had come from. They didn't object to it because that was what they
were used to, but I saw it more and more as we went along because I
thought that there should have been more spontaneity and encouragement
among the students. That poor middle-aged fellow that I was talking
about, I feared that he would be ignored in the McLaren type of school
whereas in the other, something would have been found that he could
attend to or be responsible for.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Was there pressure on the students to conform to what . . .

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, no pressure. It wasn't like that type of civilian school where the
cadets are put in uniform and all that. Not at all that way. It was
simply that the teachers believed that they knew what was best for the
students and that meant in a good many cases that the student wasn't
allowed to develop because all his time was taken up from above. He had
to obey orders.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Was there any split that you can remember in the faculty?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

All the faculty was following the same basic . . .

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Except for you. [laughter]

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

It was due to a mistake that I got there in the first place. It is quite
awkward what happened. In the middle . . . well, they hadn't even
reached the middle of the school term and McLaren's school decided that
they needed another man and they knew about a student here whose name
was Phillips Russell, the same as mine, you see. Well, they wired him to
come on. So, the telegram was delivered to me and since I had nothing
particular to do and was interested in this sort of thing, I bundled up
and showed up there. Well, when they found out what at happened, Mrs.
McLaren at least, made the best of it and said, "Tomorrow, would you do
so and so." We worked out a modus operendi so to speak
that did very well under the circumstances. I don't mean to imply
altogether were any blackeye, I'm not finding fault with them or
criticizing them. They simply followed in the footsteps of all the
schools that they knew about, which made the teachers supreme. The
teachers were order givers.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

The only reason that I keep asking about it or that I am so puzzled about
it is because as they wrote about their teaching and as the people who
are left talk about it now, that isn't what they were trying to do. I
mean, they were trying to do the opposite, they were trying to change
the system. That's why I said, "failure," because they were talking
about doing one thing and you perceived them as doing the opposite. I
mean, they talk about greater equality between students and teachers and
how there was really no difference between them, everyone was learning from everyone else and the teachers weren't
held up as supreme.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes. Well, I would explain that with a parallel that in any normal
civilian school, the teachers after they have been there twenty years
and you call on them all of a sudden to give up their authority as
teachers and to do things in a different way, you found out what the
habit is. They have just become accustome to a certain mode of operation
that they call teaching school and they keep on with that because that
is the only thing they know.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Now, Huberman had taught, I believe. I think that he was teaching at
Columbia.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes. Huberman was an experienced teacher, but he was a lecturer. He was
brought up as a lecturer and he delivered a pretty good lecture, too,
but it wasn't the same thing that you got with the textile workers, you
see. They would ask questions or stand up and object or create a
discussion after the class or something. Mrs. McLaren, Huberman and Miss
Price were all devoted people, hard workers and willing to give their
last ounce of energy to this enterprise, but who could only do the thing
as they were accustomed to doing it.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

So, you would put McLaren in the boat with the other two, right?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, she wasn't a teacher, at least at the time that I was with her. She
was an executive, you see. She was the head of the office.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

So, while you were there, she didn't teach any classes or hold any . . .

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, she had one, as I recall, that she conducted, but I never saw her
in action. I was busy elsewhere.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I read one letter from a student who was complaining about Huberman and
said that he expected everyone to follow what he was saying. In other
words, it was not indoctrination, that was too strong a word, but he had
an idea and he wanted everyone else to follow it.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

And that he controlled the flow of discussion in his classroom and
wouldn't let dissenting opinion come in.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well yes, that is exactly what I am referring to. That was what was the
dominant position among the teachers there.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Now, you came back for a second year even though it was a mixup . . .

[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[TAPE 1, SIDE B]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]

MARY FREDERICKSON:

. . . but I thought from the records of the school that I've been going
through that you were there for two years in a row.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No. Let's see. As soon as I found out that I was not the Phillips Russell
that they wanted, I stayed on at their request because they needed that
much extra help. I wouldn't have come back, however. I wouldn't have
felt welcome and in the second place, I didn't think that they were
working on the right lines there.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Did you meet Lois MacDonald at all?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, it seems to me that I did, but I didn't get any definite impression
there.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

She had a sort of a falling out with the school about the same time that
you were there.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Do you remember anything about that?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, I don't. I just heard something about it afterwards. Nothing that
made any great impression on me. No, it was the textile workers school
at Black Mountain that as I recall, I went to for three different
summers. I remember that the last one, we kept it going so late in the
fall that they mornings began to be freezing.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Do you remember H.C. Nixon? He wrote Forty Acres and Steel
Mules?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, I never met him.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Huberman left. You see, Huberman only taught economics at the school for
two years and then he left. Do you remember anything about that at
all?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, I don't.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Not why or . . .

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

And then H.C. Nixon came and taught after that. When you came back to
Chapel Hill you said that you were sometimes go over to Durham and see
textile workers that you had seen at the Black Mountain School.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

What about any kind of effect or reputation or opinion of the Southern
Summer School, McLaren's school, that people in a community like Chapel
Hill might have? Did they know anything about it?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No. They didn't know and didn't care. Just a very few people would be
interested but not enough to make any difference.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Did you ever talk to Frank Graham about the Southern Summer School?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Oh, yes. Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Now, he was on their board for a long time.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

He wasn't able to visit the school very often. Do you think that he had
visited the school he would have been happy with what they were
doing?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

I think eventually he would have felt doubtful about the same thing that
I felt doubtful about. That is, that the teachers were too dominant.
Just as Huberman objected to being interrupted or having anything happen
that would interfer with his lecture, you see. Now, that wouldn't be
regarded as a serious offense, but depending on the teacher's
reaction.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

You said that Huberman and Mildred Price were politically active, or
political activists. Was McLaren as politically active as they were?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, none of them were active in any political sense but they just went
out and voted at elections, that's all. That's all I meant by it.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Were they not . . . were they pushing any kind of . . . I mean, were they
asking people to join in any particular political party?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Did they talk about political parties?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, nothing like that, no.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

And McLaren was as far as you know, not . . . I just have trouble
understanding how in '38 or '39 when political parties in this country
were, I mean, when there were so many third parties that were active and
I think that some of these people must have been active in political
parties and that it didn't come out at the school.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, there was nothing like that. They were teachers, they were
educationists and they were just interested in schooling. They wouldn't
go out and solicit anybody's vote, no.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

And they wouldn't solicit any students to join a certain party?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

It seems like Huberman, from his book . . . he had written several books
when he was at the school. He wrote The Labor Spy
Racket and Man's Worldly Goods and he seemed in
Man's Worldly Goods to be extremely interested, as
I guess that everyone was, in the Five Year Plan in Russia and the rise
of communism. I just wondered if he . . . he certainly seems to have
taught Marxist economics.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Would you say that was the line that his class followed?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

But it was completely in a closed, economic academic sense?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

That's right. It was all academic, yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Do you think there is any possibility that these people could have been
members of the Communist Party and just very quiet about it?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Possibly, but I don't think any of them were. I think that it would have shown on them. A Communist doesn't keep that
quiet.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I was going to ask you if at the time, a Communist might not have been
able to say . . .

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

If there had been any Communists, they would have shown themselves there.
There was a terrific antagonism against the Communist when they first
came out.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

This would be before the end of the thirties?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

It is hard to understand how in such a politically active time there
wouldn't have been any discussion of politics?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

[laughter] No, you misunderstood me. That
was what the discussion was about. That was what they did talk about but
they didn't go out on the street and grab a man and say, "Will you vote
for my friend, Bill Smith who is a good Socialist or a good Communist?"
That wasn't the way it was done.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

O.K., so they were just advocating political action?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I don't understand, I'm sorry. [laughter]

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, they just took it for granted that if you were talking certain
principles that they would act on them through the ballot box when
election time came up, but they didn't make a drive at you to see that
you did it or that you needed any definite propulsion towards the
polling place. It was just an understood thing that as a citizen when
you got to be twenty-one years old, you were going to vote.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

O.K.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

And you voted in a way that would benefit your political party or your
trade union or whatever you belonged to.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

But it was all in very general terms?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

And they weren't actively going out and like you say, getting some of the
vote for a particular candidate or trying to put a particular candidate
into office?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No. Unless it was some particular internal affair where there were two
factions in the same group and one wanted to elect its candidates over
the other, you would expect to see some form of solicitation then but
otherwise, no.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Do you know what happened to Huberman, where he went or what he did? Have
you ever heard of him since?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes, I have heard of him since. He ran a kind of speakers bureau after he
came back from Asheville and he continued to write books and deliver
lectures for a few years. His magazine, which he called the Monthly Review is, I understand, still running but somebody
else has charge of it.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

I'll have to look at that.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

I'm not sure about what is happening to it, but I think that it is still
coming out.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

What about any of the other people that you can think of? Have you ever
seen or heard from them again?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, I have lost touch with them entirely. I used to keep in fair touch
with Larry Rogan who was in charge of the other school. We have
occasionally exchanged a letter or something like that, but after
awhile, he dropped out and I lost touch with him too.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

He later, after 1940, he became quite active in the Southern Summer
School, too. Correct me . . . maybe you can't help me with this, but I
have a feeling that the school was quite different in the year that you
were there. I think that while Huberman was there, it was quite
different from what it was before or after.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

That's quite possible, yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Was he a person with enough influence to change the whole course of
something like that?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, he could have, as a Columbia professor, he had more prestige than
the rest of them.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

And do you think that he had enough influence on McLaren?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Well, I think that whatever he would have proposed would have had
considerable weight with Mrs. McLaren, yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Was he popular with students?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, I can't say that he was because he was too dignified and too aloof.
He was not the type of man that would have . . . he dressed in overalls
and things like that, but he didn't mix with the students.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

You said that because you were from the South, from two miles south of
Chapel Hill, that at both the Black Mountain school and the Southern
Summer School you got along very well with the students. Did you see in
other people besides perhaps Rogan, a difference between North and
South? Was there a feeling of people coming from other parts of the
country and trying to influence people and events in the South?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No. There were very few from other parts of the country than the South,
but not enough to have any weight.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

McLaren was born and brought up in Pennsylvania.

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

Yes.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

It wasn't felt that she was from outside?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, she had been pretty well assimilated, so to speak. As I said, she was
a very gentle type of woman and she wouldn't purposely antagonize
anybody or anything. She had her husband with her most of the time and
he was what you would call an alien. That is, he tried very hard to be
friendly, but it wasn't in him.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

Oh, really?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

In the afternoon, after the classes were over, I would go out with the
students and we would pitch horseshoes. Well, he would join in, he would
ask for some shoes and he would pitch, but it was quite evident that he
was having a really hard time at it and wasn't enjoying it. He had just
read about it as something that an upper class man should do here.

MARY FREDERICKSON:

What did he do at the school? Did he teach at all?

PHILLIPS RUSSELL:

No, he was a teacher, as I understood it, during the regular term but
these were all summer months when he was off.